Two Fairy Tales

This is the final piece in our fifth fiction week.

Kara Rota, a senior agent at Thompson Literary Press, grew up in Sewell, New Jersey reading and counting down the days until she could move to New York City and work at a magazine, which she did in 2005 after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College.

Forever.

A woman was walking down the sidewalk. It was a neverending sidewalk, a treadmill sidewalk. She was watching her reflection in the dark store window, watching herself walk. As she walked, men looked at her and sometimes they made noises with their mouths. She looked straight ahead. She had her headphones in. Her mouth was the color of lipstick and she made it flat and hard. She looked at a blank spot on the horizon, a third space that only she could see. While she walked she glared hard into the secret thing. At that still point in the middle of everything, a portal opened. The harder she made her face, the bigger she thought the opening looked. She walked towards it. As she was walking she passed by her one true love and he looked at her and made an approving noise with his mouth. She didn’t recognize him because she was staring hard into the place in the middle of everything. It went on like this forever.

To the death 

Once upon a time there was a horse. There was a castle. There was a moat. There was an arrow. Once upon a time there was a boy. There was a girl. There was a letter. There was a ring. Once upon a time there was silence and the silence was broken by the loudest sound. There was stillness and then something new was born. There was nothing and then there was you. Once upon a time there was a hero. There was a quest. There was a grail. There were heavy footsteps. There was snow. There was ice. There was darkness for a hundred thousand years. There was the oldest hatred and no one could remember why. Once upon a time there was a woman. There was a mirror. There was a question, and a heart in the middle dripping blood. Once upon a time there was a prince. There was a robber. There was a huntsman. There was a boy who had always been alone. Once upon a time a door opened into another world. In a tree, in the forest, in a closet, in a bed. In the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of a clearing. At dawn, at midnight, as the soldiers closed in, on the first day of summer. Once upon a time there was love like no one had ever seen before. There was a poison. There was a vow. There was a wish. There was a harsh fate written long before any of them were born. There was a sign in the sky. A star. A clock and all the numbers were the same. Once upon a time there was a second chance. There was a coin. There was a wager. Once upon a time in a house on the top of the hill lived the ghost of something and whatever it was it was to the death. There was an ending, I just don’t remember how it goes.

FICTION WEEK IN REVIEW